Nate Weiner

The Idea Shower

I take long showers. Which has long annoyed/intrigued pretty much everyone I have ever lived with. If I go long periods of time without answering the phone, my girlfriend does not worry about me being dead, or kidnapped, she’ll just assume I’m in the shower. I take long showers because it gives me time for my mind to run. I can think clearly and my imagination can do laps around the tub. And for this reason I find that most of my ideas seem to come from the time I spend in the shower. So my advice to you? Take longer showers. Of course, I’m not the only one who finds this to be a place of innovation. Archimedes, a Greek mathematician was famously soaking in his bathtub when he realized that the volume of an object could be measured by the amount of water it displaced. He then shouted ‘Eureka!’ and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse. Despite my own moments of realization, I have yet to run naked through the streets after coming up with an idea. The closest I have come is a b-line from the shower to the computer chair.

Now in Archimedes case, he had a good idea. And one that worked quite well. Unfortunately for me, and the majority of post-shower streakers, the ideas we come running out with, more often then not, don’t hold any water. That’s because 6 out of 10 times, by the time you’re done soaking a wet spot into your chair, you’ll have likely already found at least three other websites already doing your idea. And if you’ve actually come up with a legitimate, original idea? Well, after spending a few weeks (or months) researching and building, you may eventually find your idea just isn’t worth pursuing. But despite the fact that most of your ideas are too late in the game, or suck. I still believe if you continue to follow through on each and every one of them, you’ll learn enough to know what to do when that 1-in-a-million idea actually does make you run naked through the streets. For the past few years I’ve been working on all sorts of ideas. Some never made it out of the tub, some are just now in the works, some I spent months of time on before being abandoning them, and some I just don’t have the time or resources to follow through with yet. But each one of the ideas I’ve worked on has provided me with both obstacles and solutions. And I am beginning to find that each idea has the same obstacle courses, and that each time through, I’m finding it much easy to pull myself through. So, take a look around, and see what ideas I’ve had. Let me know what stinks and what rocks. And hopefully what I share here can help others find the streaking-obstacle-course-to-success a little easier to run.